ANR Robinson’s granddaughter defends ICC legacy after T&T abstention

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The grand­daugh­ter of for­mer prime min­is­ter ANR Robin­son says the rule of law re­mains es­sen­tial to­day as it was 24 years ago when the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC) was es­tab­lished.

Anush­ka Robin­son was re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s de­ci­sion to ab­stain from vot­ing ear­li­er this week in a Unit­ed Na­tions (UN) res­o­lu­tion on the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC) an­nu­al re­port.

The re­port gives mem­ber states an overview of the ju­di­cial, pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al and ad­min­is­tra­tive work of the court.

The res­o­lu­tion was passed as 93 coun­tries vot­ed in favour, 13 (in­clud­ing the Unit­ed States, Is­rael, Rus­sia and Ar­genti­na) were against, while 36 coun­tries ab­stained.

In Ju­ly, the US an­nounced plans to dis­man­tle the ICC, ac­cus­ing it of in­fring­ing on US sov­er­eign­ty.

The ICC was es­tab­lished in 2002 fol­low­ing the ad­vo­ca­cy of Robin­son, who is con­sid­ered a pi­o­neer of the in­sti­tu­tion.

Re­flect­ing on her grand­fa­ther’s lega­cy, Anush­ka not­ed he would have turned 100 years old this year. She said equal­i­ty in the eyes of the law was a prin­ci­ple he felt strong­ly about.

“I re­call that from a young age, he im­pressed up­on me the need for the rule of law for an egal­i­tar­i­an and peace­ful so­ci­ety. I have not seen that need di­min­ish in the present day,” she said.

She quot­ed the for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader of the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR), who, in a 1993 pri­vate mem­ber’s mo­tion in Par­lia­ment, said, “An es­sen­tial pil­lar of this New World Or­der must not be the rule of the priv­i­leged or of the pow­er­ful, but the rule of law.”

She added he was de­fin­i­tive that all of T&T “can be jus­ti­fi­ably proud of its role in giv­ing life and sub­stance to this moral vi­sion.”

Robin­son was not the on­ly promi­nent lo­cal politi­cian to play an in­stru­men­tal role in the ICC.

In De­cem­ber 2011, for­mer pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona was elect­ed as a pros­e­cu­tor in the ICC.

He served in that ca­pac­i­ty un­til March 2013, when he be­came pres­i­dent.

For­mer PNM sen­a­tor Lau­rence His­lop and oth­er To­ba­go op­po­si­tion politi­cians have ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment with T&T’s po­si­tion.

His­lop said ho­n­our­ing Robin­son with his name on the To­ba­go air­port meant lit­tle if T&T does not stand by the prin­ci­ples he was known in­ter­na­tion­al­ly for.

To­ba­go East MP David Thomas de­clined com­ment on the is­sue when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, he promised to ad­dress the mat­ter in the near fu­ture.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Wednes­day, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go leader Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis said the Gov­ern­ment was align­ing it­self with the Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion at the ex­pense of To­bag­o­ni­ans’ prin­ci­ples. Not­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s close re­la­tion­ship with the US ad­min­is­tra­tion, she said Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine must speak out to pro­tect Robin­son’s lega­cy.

“Play­ing blind, deaf, and dumb in the face of this sur­ren­der to Wash­ing­ton’s for­eign agen­da places po­lit­i­cal align­ment with your UNC coali­tion part­ners ahead of the dig­ni­ty, moral au­thor­i­ty, and his­toric lega­cy of To­bag­o­ni­ans,” she said.

Cud­joe-Lewis added, “ANR Robin­son gave this is­land and this na­tion a moral voice on the glob­al stage. It is time for the Chief Sec­re­tary to find his own voice, de­fend To­ba­go’s dig­ni­ty, and pub­licly con­demn this dis­grace­ful sur­ren­der at the UN.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine for a com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful up to press time.